As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an Information Handling System (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, global communications, etc. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Mobile IHSs are now common and continue to be adopted in new applications as the capabilities of mobile IHSs continue to mature. Higher performance mobile IHSs are desirable as they enable providing users with more powerful and faster applications. Faster processors, for instance, allow mobile IHSs to provide users with faster operations and allow mobile IHSs to run more demanding applications, such as games that have demanding graphics requirements. A limiting factor in providing users with more powerful mobile IHSs, such as by using faster processors, is the heat generated by the internal components of the mobile IHS. In general, using a faster processor requires generating more heat.
For mobile IHSs, a significant constraint is the requirement to maintain the outer surface of the IHS at a safe temperature that allows a user to handle all parts of the IHS without risk of injury. For larger mobile IHSs, such as laptops, fans or other active heat transfer devices are used to eject heated air from inside the enclosure of the IHS. Smaller IHSs, such as tablets and handhelds, are typically limited to passive heat transfer devices, such as heatsinks, and may be unable to provide sufficient cooling required for certain processors. Due at least in part to the inability to dissipate additional heat, designers of mobile IHs may underutilize available processors or choose slower processors for certain mobile IHSs. By doing so, safe surface temperatures may be maintained, but at the expense of underutilizing available processing capabilities.